“With these words he put his foot upon the gunwale, and his unwearying boat-hook went back jubilantly into the battle.
“Rapidly loading and firing my shotgun, I picked off as many of our enemies as I comfortably could; and B——, by lashing the boat’s hatchet on the end of the gaff, made a weapon with which he played havoc among our foes.
“But the fray lasted not much longer. Innumerable as were yet the survivors, their hunger was becoming appeased, and their ferocity diminished. In a little while they sheered off to a safer distance.
“When we had time to think of our own condition, we found that our backs were painfully scorched by the blazing June sun. As with pain we struggled into our clothes, Chris trimmed our course toward home.
“‘I reckon you know now ’bout all you’ll wanter know ’bout the ways o’ dogfish,’ he suggested.
“‘They are certainly very bloodthirsty,’ said the rector; ‘but at the same time they are interesting. That they gave us a noble contest you can’t deny.’”
When Queerman relapsed into silence, Ranolf took up the parable without waiting to be called upon.
“Queerman’s story,” said he, “reminds me of an adventure of my own, which befell me in that same tide-region which he has just been talking of. You know, I spent much of my illustrious boyhood about the Tantramar marshes, and overlooking the yellow head-waters of the Bay of Fundy. The name of my story is, ‘The Bull and the Leaping-Pole,’ and the scene of it is within a mile of the spot whence Queerman and his crowd set out for shad. It will serve to show what agility I am capable of on a suitable occasion.
THE BULL AND THE LEAPING-POLE.
“Out on the Tantramar marshes the wind, as usual, was racing with superfluous energy, bowing all one way the purple timothy-tops, and rolling up long green waves of grass that shimmered like the sea under the steady afternoon sun. I revelled in the fresh and breezy loneliness, which nevertheless at times gave me a sort of thrill, as the bobolinks, stopping their song for a moment, left no sound in my ears save the confused ‘swish’ of the wind. Men talk at times of the loneliness of the dark, but to my mind there is no more utter solitude than may be found in a broad white glare of sunshine.